snark: a (well-deserved) attitude of mocking irreverence and sarcasm

June 08, 2019

We Oregonians aren't paying enough for the gasoline that fuels our cars and trucks.

Hopefully Oregon's Clean Energy Jobs Bill, also known as cap and trade, will pass in this legislative session and increase the state gasoline tax to a level that comes a heck of a lot closer to reflecting the long-term costs of the carbon pollution that is fueling global warming to increasingly dangerous levels.

Almost three quarters of the revenues expected from the bill would come from increases in transportation fuel prices. The Legislative revenue office expects that to translate to about 22 cents a gallon increase at the pump in 2021, when the policy kicks in, increasing to 78 cents a gallon 10 years later and $3 a gallon by 2050.

Excellent! The higher gas prices go, the more incentive there will be for people to buy electric cars/trucks in some form: all electric, plug-in hybrid, or regular hybrid.

My wife and I bought a 2019 Toyota RAV4 Hybrid about a week ago. We're enjoying it a lot. It gets about 40 mpg, which is pretty darn good for a decently-sized all wheel drive SUV.

We're avid environmentalists, but have resisted jumping back into the 100% electric car pond after experiencing some range anxiety after buying a 2012 Nissan Leaf (there were other more important reasons we sold the Leaf and got a Chevy Volt, though).

Thus we serve as a good example of why the Oregon legislature needs to overcome the resistance of industry groups, along with the always-irritating theatrics of pseudo-Democrat Sen. Betsy Johnson, who has proposed a bunch of amendments to the bill that would dilute its carbon-reducing impact considerably.

Government action is essential if the world is to escape the worst effects of rapidly rising temperatures. A big reason why is the Tragedy of the Commons situation that I learned about way-back-when in my Systems Science graduate school days.

The notion is simple.

Everybody in a town wants to graze their sheep on commonly owned land. It makes sense for each sheep owner to do this, since the grass is there for the asking. Or rather, grazing. But when everybody does what makes sense for them, the commons is over-grazed, the grass dies, and everybody suffers.

Likewise, every car and truck owner wants to do what makes sense for them. Sometimes this is good for everybody -- buying an electric car and charging it with solar panels, for example -- but usually it isn't.

Only government can do that. So let's do it, Oregon legislature. The arguments against the bill in the Oregonian stories are very weak.

Oregon has little impact on global emissions. So what? Every country in the world could say something similar, as could every state in the United States, every city in each state, and so on. A global problem requires global action at every level.

Oregon would be only the second state to institute an economy-wide limit on greenhouse emissions, behind California. Again, so what? Oregon used to take pride in being an environmental leader. Bottle bill. Public beaches. Land use planning. We led the way in these areas. So let's lead the way in limiting greenhouse gas emissions.

Hopefully the Democrats who control both houses of the state legislature and the Governor's Office will realize that this is the moment to take a stand for the habitability for humans of our one and only Earth.

If they fail to pass the Clean Energy Jobs Bill in the nest two weeks, the opportunity may never come again.

For low-skilled workers, warehouse jobs have seemed to be something of a bright spot. Even if fewer people are required to staff a Target or a Sam’s Club outlet, the movement of products requires a network of warehouses to store and ship goods.

Amazon—the world’s largest online retailer—currently has more than ninety thousand employees at its U.S. distribution centers, and plans to hire tens of thousands more. Workers still do the “picking” in a warehouse, using their dexterous fingers and discerning brains to take soap and coffee and tubes of toothpaste and millions of other products off the shelves and put them into boxes to fulfill the online shopping orders that make up an increasing portion of consumers’ buying patterns.

But the same factors that make warehouses a draw for labor have made them a tempting target for automation. In 2012, Amazon spent almost eight hundred million dollars to buy a robotics company called Kiva, which makes robots that can zoom around a factory floor and move tall stacks of shelves of up to seven hundred and fifty pounds in weight.

A Deutsche Bank research report estimated that Amazon could save twenty-two million dollars a year by introducing the Kiva machines in a single warehouse; the savings company-wide could reach into the billions. With such a powerful incentive, Amazon is on a quest to acquire or develop systems that can replace human pickers. When, in June, it announced plans to buy the Whole Foods supermarket chain, speculation quickly spread that the company intended to automate the grocer’s food-distribution centers as well as its stores.

Robots aren't going to replace human "pickers" overnight, given the difficulty in designing machines that can do a task that's easy for people but complex for current machines.

Squat wheeled machines carry boxes around in more than 20 of the company’s cavernous fulfillment centers across the globe. But it falls exclusively to humans to do things like pulling items from shelves or placing them into those brown boxes that bring garbage bags and pens and books to our homes.

Robots able to help with so-called picking tasks would boost Amazon’s efficiency—and make it much less reliant on human workers. It’s why the company has invited a motley crew of mechanical arms, grippers, suction cups—and their human handlers—to Nagoya, Japan, this week to show off their manipulation skills.

...Amazon has run versions of its challenge in two previous years. This time around, though, the retail giant has revised the rules in ways that make the competition more difficult. “I think it’s getting closer to the real conditions you would find in a warehouse,” says Juxi Leitner, who leads a team from the Australian Centre of Excellence for Robotic Vision. “They’re getting people to work on a problem they think they will need to solve to stay competitive without needing to hire anyone.”

...When asked to estimate how long before a commercial-grade robot could do tasks similar to those presented in Amazon’s contest, Rodriguez of MIT guesses five years. Robotic fingers are getting nimbler but still have much to learn. Amazon’s mechanized picking contest could be an annual event for a while yet.

A previous 2014 Wired story contains a quotation from an Amazon executive that shows the optimistic spin the company is trying to put on its major push into robotics.

But if robots move Amazon's merchandise faster while costing less overall, won't Amazon try to find ways to replace as many of those human workers as possible? Clark says that won't happen, because the rise in productivity will give Amazon the means to grow. And growth means Amazon will need to hire more people.

Well, that has held true so far. But my bet is that robots are going to be replacing workers in Amazon's Salem warehouse within five years.

A Statesman Journal story had some glowing comments from Oregon Governor Kate Brown and Salem Mayor Chuck Bennett.

Brown heralded the move, saying in a statement: “Amazon’s continued expansion in Oregon means more jobs and bright futures for the Oregonians who work there and live in the surrounding communities."

Salem Mayor Chuck Bennett welcomed Amazon to town with a statement: "Salem is looking forward to partnering with Amazon to create innovative jobs and develop a lasting relationship with our vibrant community."

Hmmmm.

With ever more sophisticated warehouse robots being developed by Amazon, there's good reason to doubt that the people who will be hired initially for the warehouse jobs have "bright futures." And the "innovative jobs" Bennett speaks of will require considerable technological expertise.

Meaning, robots will be doing most of the work now being done by humans. The role of people will be to keep the robots functioning smoothly, and that won't be an entry-level job.